WGU: MSISA Academics

ltj8765

After searching many posts and getting a headache I could not find information that provided feedback on the academic aspects of the MSISA degree at WGU so decided to post this question. If there is a post or two out there I missed, my apologies for asking this question again

Anyone that is in the MSISA program or has completed the program, I am just wondering what it is like? Is there a lot of research and writing, or more on the practical application of the material, etc. I am looking for your experiences while in the program and how you view it academically?

i am still trying to decide if it is right for me but just want a little more information.

forestgiant

The WGU MSc ISA curriculum I enrolled in consisted of 6 exams (Objective assessments), and 8 writing-intensive (Performance assessments) courses, plus EWB (orientation course). The six exams were through Cisco, GIAC, and EC-Council. So yes, there's a major opportunity to practice and apply what you learn while preparing for the exams just as you would if you were to take them outside of the degree. In other words, you can't pass the CCNA exam without labbing and understanding CLI outputs and etc... EC-Council's exams were somewhat different, and you could read about them in their respective forums elsewhere on this site. The only exception is the GIAC G2700 exam; it is very CISSP-like, and requires tons of reading and comprehensive understanding of IT governance and policies.

The performance assessment courses consisted of three to five papers each, averaging about five to ten pages. They were not extremely difficult, but here again are opportunities for you to spend a lot of time sorting through academic papers, vendors' white papers, and Google. Expect to have your papers bounced back multiple times for justification, expansion, or otherwise complete re-writes.

The capstone paper is yet the largest project that lets you explore in-depth a topic that interests you (with the thesis' adviser's approval, of course). Once you're enrolled there's a library of capstone papers from former students at your disposal. It appeared to me about half of the papers were very technical, and half policy-based with technical justifications. So I would say every MSc student had practical applications of policies and skills they learned from the program at various degrees.

I would suggest to assess your long term goals and see where a MSc degree might help or hinder your progress. A masters degree is a step towards deeper understanding of theories and policies, so if you expected only hands-on experience, there are better ways obtain that without the stress of studying and writing long papers. If you look at other universities' MSc ISA programs you would notice a similar pattern. The delivery and emphasis on contents may be different, but there's only so many ways you can slice a pie, so you would find that most MSc ISA programs are very similar in outcomes.